I’m currently working on getting the footage put together of the three bands I was able to see. It’ll be on an upcoming episode of Transit Sleuth TV in the coming weeks. Why did I only see 3 bands? It’s all about the logistics of how the festival works, it’s really pretty cool. Albeit it does leave you missing some of the bands.

How the Logistics of Music Work at SMMF

This years festival has a loading and unloading stop where all the bands stage ready to get on and off the streetcars. At the same time an audience builds up at the stop for switching to the streetcars as one arrives with a previously playing band and a new streetcar arrives to embark the next band. Check out this map below for an idea of how it works.

The starting point is also the ending point. A band boards with all their gear at the starting point, which this year was at the eastern stop just over the Broadway Bridge. The stop is N Weidler & Ross (id: 13607). That is is used for quick mobile phone update of when the next streetcar is arriving. At the festival you could see a lot of phones being used to record the bands and see when the next arrivals were coming over the bridge.

Once the band boarded they would play a set while the streetcar travelled south toward OMSI. This year the last stop at OMSI wasn’t taken however, because of construction for the pending connection to the new bridge. Because of this the streetcar was turning at the section of the route tagged turnaround below. Once the streetcar turned the second half of the set would be played while we traveled back north to the N Weidler & Ross stop. There the band, and much of the audience, would disembark and wait a few minutes for the next streetcar to arrive and start the jamming over again with a new loop trip.

Yes, L.A. has a head start on Portland in the realm of diverse bicycle culture. But a tour of St. Johns or East Portland will reveal the variety of people riding bikes here. As we work to encourage everyone who wants to use a bike for transportation to do so are we missing the “ Invisible Riders” ?
Adonia Lugo will draw on her experiences at Ciudad de Luces (now Multicultural Communities for Mobility) and CicLAvia, as well as her academic work, to address this topic.

A cultural anthropologist and activist, Dr. Lugo blogs at urbanadonia.com about her carfree adventures as a Chicana woman and the belief our cities can be socially just and ecologically sustainable. In Los Angeles, she co-founded CicLAvia and City of Lights/ Ciudad de Luces (now Multicultural Communities for Mobility).

It’d be great to meet and see others, so ping me via Twitter @transitsleuth and let me know you’re coming. I’ll be sure to say hello!